1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image obtaining method, an image pick-up device and an image pick-up information transmitting system, and more particularly to an image obtaining method, an image pick-up device and an image pick-up information transmitting system capable of obtaining under a remote control an image from other communication devices connected by a communication.
Further, the present invention relates to an image transmitter and a print system, and more particularly to an image transmitter and a print system for editing the image inputted by the image transmitter and transmitting an edited print image to a printer.
2. Description of Related Art
An image pick-up system, an electronic camera and a computer system for controlling the electronic camera and a control method for them in which the control parameters of the electronic camera such as an exposure, various kinds of balance controls, etc. can be set by a host computer side connected thereto by a communication path are disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-219422.
On the other hand, the electronic camera in which an image picked up by the electronic camera is directly transmitted to a printer by a wireless communication to instruct the image to be printed has been hitherto known.
Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-261619 discloses a monitor system of a construction site in which the state of a construction work site is shot by a television camera, and its static image is transmitted by the wireless communication network of a portable telephone and a receiving part displays the received static image by a monitor television, records the image by an image recording video recorder and the recorded image is printed out by a printer.
The image pick-up system, the electronic camera and the computer system for controlling the electronic camera and the control method for them disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-219422 are adapted to remotely control the electronic camera from the computer connected to the electronic camera, and therefore, the parameters upon picking up an image can be set and an image picking-up operation can be performed by the electronic camera and the picked-up image can be obtained from the electronic camera. However, in order to set various kinds of parameters of the electronic camera and obtain the picked-up image from the electronic camera, it has been necessary to previously provide a dedicated command for the computer.
In the case where the computer to which the electronic camera is connected is an apparatus employed only for controlling the electronic camera, it does not cause any trouble. However, for instance, in the case where the electronic camera is connected to a personal computer, a PDA (personal digital assistant), a portable telephone, etc., these devices to which the electronic camera is connected need to previously have dedicated commands for controlling the electronic camera. Since the control method for the electronic camera is not ordinarily a generalized using method of each device to which the electronic camera is connected, it has been a utilization method unfamiliar to a user and the user has needed to forcedly make a troublesome setting such as the installation of a device driver only for controlling the electronic camera. Especially, in the case each device to which the electronic camera is connected is a small communication device such as a portable telephone or the like, it has been disadvantageously difficult to meet the device in view of the configuration of a hardware due to a condition under which resources for storing the device driver or performing an information processing are limited.
Further, since in the control mode of a computer connected to the conventional electronic camera, an image pick-up mode is completely separated from the transfer mode of an image, a computer side cannot inconveniently instruct an image to be freely picked up.
Still further, in the case where the computer side instructs an image to be obtained, there has been hitherto only a function for obtaining the picked up image which is recorded in the electronic camera, so that the computer side cannot instruct a continuous operation for picking up an image and obtaining the picked up image. Therefore, an operation has been undesirably complicated.
On the other hand, in the case where the conventional electronic camera instructs the recorded image to be transmitted to a printer by a wireless communication and to be printed, the electronic camera only can inconveniently instruct one sheet of the image to be directly printed. Therefore, when a plurality of sheets of the same images are printed, it has been necessary to transmit the required number of sheets of images. Further, when a trimming operation is performed on the image, the image data of an area which is not actually printed has been also transmitted to the printer and the trimming processing has been applied to the area of the image data from the printer side. Therefore, a useless transmitting time has been required.
Furthermore, the monitor system disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-261619 also cannot transmit the edited print image from the television camera of a transmitting side or the portable telephone side.